Pronouns: I, you, me etc - the confusion for an AS kid

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My daughter will be 4 in November. She has been assessed twice by two different groups as being on the spectrum. The second assessment wasn't planned. We just had an appointment booked - long story, but it was because we needed help with how to help our daughter who was becoming increasingly agitated and we felt powerless to help.

Anyhow, lately, I've been noticing she's switched up the I want (and yes she uses manners) to "You want a...." and she's saying you when she means I and it's happening more frequently. When I hear it, I recognize the error and that she thinks she is referring to herself. I read somewhere that many AS kids have difficulty with pronouns because they're not specific enough? When my daughter sees photos of her self, she says "that's [her name]", not "that's me". I understand that there is also some kind of disconnect or lack of awareness in some individuals of where their body ends and the rest of the world begins. I know, very generalized...apologies, but I was wondering if any other parents noticed similar types of language in their child and the steps they're taking to try and assist them to understand the difference. Right now, when she says "do you want" or "you want" and she means "I want", I ask her to say "I want ...." and she repeats it and we do that a couple of times. If she does something and does it well or achieves something, she says "You did it". I'm sure you get the picture...

I've had a problem with this myself, but it's not to the extent your child has.

I'm not a professional, but it seems like (from my personal experience) that the brain kind of gets pronouns mixed up and the wrong word comes out. I don't think your daughter actually means it the way she says it, and I assume she knows pronouns themselves in a logical manner.

I don't think it can actually be helped because I think it's more of a brain thing than misunderstanding how to properly use a pronoun.

I know I'm not of much help, but I hope your daughter can get the help she needs.

I have four year old twins who are both on the very high functioning end of the autism spectrum, and they both do this to differing degrees. Keep working with your daughter and she will get it. It sounds lie she is strong cognitively, so understanding pronouns may need to come from the logic center of her brain as opposed to the language center. This is a very common problem that autistic children have, but my sense from your post is that she's just delayed, but will eventually grasp the concept once her cognitive abilities mature enough to get in front of her language tendencies. Does that make sense? I mean that by 5/6/7 years of age, she'll be able to draw upon her cognitive center to get the right pronoun, as opposed to relying upon her language center which is often wired very differently for autistic folk. Bottom line is that if you work with her, she'll learn it.

My 2 older kids used to do this. We used to work on it with them, correcting and explaining.
The eldest (8yo) now uses all pronouns correctly.
Number 2 mostly does too, but still says things like "you want to cook rice" when he means "I'd like you to cook rice".

My daughter did this a lot when she was younger. I did as you are doing, corrected her in a very non-confrontational way, and she eventually stopped doing it. I wouldn't be too concerned. I would just keep doing what you are doing.

I have often noted that autistics, especially kids, tend to make many of the same errors that non-native speakers make (literal interpretations, pronoun reversals, etc). I have always felt like "spoken language" is a "second language" to my kids. It's not "naturally wired" in their brains the same way as for NT people. It's just part of the process of working in a non-preferred mode, I think. I know I only think in words when I consciously force myself to do it, so sometimes in translating what I am thinking into words, I become aware that I don't know how to say what I am thinking. It makes me suspect that I have to do internal "translating" that people who think verbally do not have to do. When you are a little kid, you don't have as much practice in doing this, so it makes sense to me that you would be more prone to errors.

My son, who just turned 4 in April, has just overcome this issue in the last few months through ABA therapy.

We started a progam to teach him "my" and "your" first using body parts. The instructor would simply point to his ear and ask "whose ear is this?" The instructor alternates between her own ear and my son's ear. It needs to be done with a gentle, errorless learning method so the child won't get frustrated. Read up on ABA if you don't understand how to do this.

After he learned this, we moved to "me and you" using pictures. The instructor would point to him in a picture and ask "who is this?" He sometimes said "it's you" or "it's David" and was corrected to say "it's me." It took a few weeks but now he rarely makes these mistakes.

My 2 year old does this as well and is not autistic. It must be very common.

I've got a couple of thoughts on this.

First, some autistic kids seem to make their first communication attempts through echolalia, and then learn to mix & match phrases to build their own sentences. For example, they might start to request a cookie by saying 'Do you want a cookie?', and then learn enough grammar to figure out what the difference between questions and statements, so they turn it into 'You want a cookie.'

Second, autistic kids often have more trouble imagining themselves in someone else's place. So if everyone else uses 'I' for themselves and 'you' for the autistic kid, it can be tough for them to realize that if they were the speaker, 'I' would refer to them. Instead, they take it just from their own perspective - since everyone else calls them 'you', that must mean that they should call themselves 'you'.

Either way, the kid may pick up on the idea that they're getting pronouns wrong in some way long before they've figured out how pronouns actually work. So to avoid the potential of making a mistake, they might decide to avoid using pronouns.

If she is otherwise pretty strong with language, I would not worry about this. I agree it's a brain wiring thing, but learning how to refer to people is complex and changes according to the circumstances (talking to very young children, adults often use the third person).

I don't know if this is relevant, but when I'm having trouble and want to understand someone else, I have to almost literally put myself in their shoes, and when I do that I use the pronoun I'd use if I were the other person. However, it seems like I and most adults keep pronouns straight most of the time even if they mix them up at times when under stress or distracted from using words to accurately communicate.

If she is otherwise learning to have social conversations, she will learn this, too.